Tina Scheer becomes the first castaway to exit 'Survivor: Panama'

By Reality TV World staff, 02/03/2006

The latest example that coming off too strong and outspoken during Survivor's early days can prove fatal, Tina Scheer, a 45-year-old logging sports promoter/performer from Hayward, Wisconsin, became the first Survivor: Panama -- Exile Island contestant to be eliminated from the game, voted off in a unanimous 3-1 Tribal Council vote.

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Last night's CBS broadcast of Survivor: Panama -- Exile Island's premiere began with the new season's sixteen castaways arriving on Exile Island in four gender and age divided groups. Once there, Survivor host Jeff Probst explained that those four groupings would serve as their initial tribes and explained Survivor: Panama's Exile Island twist to the contestants. Afterward, Jeff further surprised the castaways with the announcement that the tribes would also immediately compete in their first challenge -- a Reward Challenge that would determine which tribe would have to be the first to banish one of its members to a solitary overnight stay on Exile Island.

A simple challenge in which luck played the biggest role, the Reward Challenge required each tribe to select one member to run several hundred feet across the tiny island to a pile of fake skulls. Once there, they would have to smash the skulls until they found a skull that contained an amulet. After finding the amulet, the castaways would have to run back to the starting line, with the first three tribes to finish the challenge receiving a fire-making flint and the last tribe having to pick a member to remain overnight on Exile Island.

After discussing the challenge amongst themselves for a few moments, the tribes selected Austin Carty, Terry Deitz, Danielle DiLorenzo, and Ruth Marie Milliman to represent them in the challenge. Terry Deitz (of the La Mina older men tribe) completed the challenge first, followed by Austin (representing Vivero, the younger men) and Ruth Marie (representing Casaya, the older women.)

As the last place team, Bayoneta (the younger women tribe) played a quick game of rock, paper. scissors to determine which one of them would remain on the island. Misty Giles lost the game, leaving her to watch alone as Jeff -- after again shocking the castaways by revealing the game's additional Exile Island hidden Immunity Idol twist -- handed the rest of the castaways their tribal maps and sent them off on their way.

Once the other castaways left, Jeff gave Misty a cryptic clue about the hidden Immunity Idol's location. "You also have a lot of time to think about why fate chose you to be the first one out here, which is also why immunity is already so important," Jeff added after informing Misty of her meager Exile Island supplies. "And as for your first clue -- the whereabouts -- I've already given it to you." Although Jeff was never shown using the word "behind" in his statements to her, Misty seemed to think he did, and believing that might be her clue, began using her time on the island to search the area behind where she was standing when she believed Jeff made the comment.

Meanwhile, the rest of the castaways began arriving at their tribal camps. Over at Casaya, the tribe quickly got to work, with Tina, an experienced outdoors woman, emerging as the tribe's early leader. As they worked, it also became clear to everyone that unlike Tina, Cirie Fields was not remotely comfortable in their new surroundings. "I hate leaves... there's a lot of scary stuff around here," Cirie explained to an astonished Tina.

In a development that shouldn't have come as a surprise to viewers who have watched previous Survivor seasons that featured tribes comprised exclusively of 20-something castaways, both Vivero and Bayoneta appeared significantly less organized and more unfocused than the older women.

After spending much of their valuable remaining daylight hours horsing around, the younger men struggled to start a fire and built a shelter that Austin labeled "pathetic." "We don't have a clue what we are doing," he confessed. "That is the sorriest shelter I think we could have possibly come up with... let's just hope it doesn't rain," Nick Stanbury remarked.

Already down one tribe member and without flint, the younger women also seemed equally unorganized, spending much of their afternoon wandering around their island and treating the decision about where to build their shelter as though they were shopping at the mall. "We were so back and forth about where to pick our shelter... we were being women," Courtney Marit joked. Along the way, Courtney also felt the need to take time out to explore the symbolism of a dead sea turtle they discovered.

Meanwhile over at La Mina, the older men appeared to be mostly working like a well oiled machine. Although the sudden withdrawal from his three pack a day smoking habit left Shane Powers irritable, the tribe still appeared to work very well together, quickly establishing a roaring fire and constructing a solid shelter. Terry and Dan Barry also used the afternoon to form an early alliance, pledging to not lie to each other and revealing their previously undisclosed respective former occupations as a US Navy fighter pilot and NASA astronaut to each other.

The next morning, Misty continued to spend her Exile Island time searching -- unsuccessfully -- for the hidden Immunity Idol. However although she didn't find the idol, fearing that her time away from camp would make her the first person to be voted off should her tribe lose the day's upcoming Immunity Challenge, Misty decided to try and convince her tribemates otherwise. "When I see my tribemates at the next Immunity Challenge, I will trick them into thinking that I found the Immunity Idol," she explained to the cameras.

Although it was unclear whether anyone believed her, Misty did attempt to convince everyone that she found Exile Island's hidden Immunity Idol during her overnight stay there, teasing that she spent "enough" time looking for the idol when Jeff made a point to question her about the topic before explaining the Immunity Challenge to the gathered tribes.

After Misty's bluff attempt, the tribes competed in the Immunity Challenge, a competition that required the tribes to swim out to an anchored raft, dive down and unclip the raft from its anchor, paddle the raft to shore, solve a brainteaser, and then use a metal ring freed from the brainteaser to retrieve a grabbing hook that would unfurl their tribal flag. Surprisingly, the younger women emerged as the early leaders and never looked back, becoming the first tribe to complete the challenge. The older men followed close behind, leaving the older women and younger men to battle for third place. In the end, the older women struggled to understand the instructions in the brainteaser hint that they'd dug up, resulting in Vivero finishing third and the Casaya tribe facing their first Tribal Council.

Once back at camp, the Casaya tribe between trying to decide who would be voted off at their Night 3 Tribal Council session. As they did, Tina -- obviously still dealing with the recent tragic accidental death of her 16-year-old only child but deciding to not share that information with her fellow tribemates -- isolated herself from the tribe's three other women. Fearing that she might otherwise be the castaway to go home, Cirie hatched a plan to convince Ruth Marie and Melinda Hyder that Tina should be the castaway to be voted off the island.

Although Tina appeared to nearly derail Cirie's plan when she told her tribemates that she had managed to "catch with her bare hands" a large fish that had gotten trapped in the rocks during low tide, Ruth Marie and Melinda (perhaps put off by Tina's Tribal Council comments in which she questioned her fellow tribemates' work ethics) ultimately agreed that they could survive without Tina, resulting in the "lumberjill" becoming the first castaway to be voted out of Survivor: Panama -- Exile Island.